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Who's Buying What in Super Bowl 2011

From Bud Light and Stella Artois to Best Buy and Groupon, the Ad Lineup in Today's Big Game

NEW YORK (AdAge.com) -- Commercial time during today's Super Bowl on Fox has been sold out since October, but who's promoting which brands during the annual gridiron classic has only gradually become clear as game day approached. Marketers mixed it up, too, in the waning days of the countdown: Pizza Hut backtracked on plans to run a commercial during the game itself, reverting to its usual pre-game strategy, while social discounting service Groupon found its way into the game after seeming limited to pre- and post-game advertising.

Some marketers making a multimillion-dollar investment in Super Bowl XLV -- Fox was seeking between $2.8 million and $3 million for 30 seconds of time during this year's game -- have released more of the spots ahead of time than they once would have, opting for YouTube buzz-building over the impact of complete surprise. But many others kept their creative strategies secret.

Here's the Ad Age rundown of commercials in Super Bowl 2011.

Anheuser-Busch InBev

Buy:
One 60-second spot for premium Belgian brew Stella Artois, one 60-second spot for Budweiser and three 30-second spots for Bud Light.

Creative: The Stella Artois Super Bowl spot continues the campaign launched late last year that features '60s-era European settings in ads that target well-educated, upscale beer drinkers with the tagline "She Is a Thing of Beauty." The Clydesdales will appear in the 60-second Budweiser spot in the second quarter; the Bud Light spots will continue the "Here We Go" campaign that debuted at last year's Super Bowl.

Agency: The Stella spot comes from the independent agency Mother. The Budweiser spot comes from the independent Anomaly. Two of the Bud Light ads are by Omnicom Group's DDB, Chicago, while one was done by St. Louis-based Cannonball.

Audi of America

Buy: One spot in first ad break in first quarter

Creative: This is Audi's fourth consecutive entry in the Super Bowl. Creative focus will center on how Audi provides an escape to a better kind of luxury. One of many automakers vying for attention during the game.

Creative: Careerbuilder brings back its popular and memorable chimpanzees after a hiatus of five years. Look for the chimps to wreak havoc at Yeknom Industries, their place of work, while a human counterpart bears the brunt of their, um, monkeyshines.

Creative: The spots will feature not one, not two, but three -- count 'em -- "GoDaddy girls," including reliable standby Danica Patrick and newcomer (and "Biggest Loser" star) Jillian Michaels. Here's the GoDaddy Jillian Michaels Danica Patrick Super Bowl spot.
The third celebrity -- a surprise -- will be revealed in a commercial touting a new .co web domain (as opposed to .com).

Agency: Produced in-house by GoDaddy Productions

Groupon

Buy: One 30-second spot secured at nearly the last second after another marketer pulled out. The social discount service has also bought time during the pre- and post-game activities.

Creative: To be determined

Agency: Crispin Porter & Bogusky

HomeAway Inc.

Buy: One 30-second ad, set to air in the third quarter

Creative: The online vacation-home rentals company, whose entry in the 2010 Super Bowl marked its first time advertising in the event, is set to launch a new national campaign. Its ad will seek to highlight the benefits of vacation rentals over hotels by invoking a fictional government agency, the Ministry of Detourism, and the slogan "Why Hotel When You Can HomeAway?" In its 2010 Super Bowl ad, HomeAway drew attention by featuring Chevy Chase and Beverly D'Angelo in their roles from the 1980s movie "National Lampoon's Vacation."

Creative:
The spot, entitled "One Epic Ride," will show people from different times and places -- such as an "ancient chief," a police officer, space aliens and Poseidon -- trying to get behind the wheel of the new Kia Optima, according to the automaker.
The commercial is tied into a contest -- "One Epic Contest" -- in which consumers vying for one of five 2011 Optimas will use clues provided in 15-second TV spots, print ads and social media to answer four questions in the weeks before the game. The answer to a final question will be found within the Super Bowl spot itself.

Buy: One 30-second spot for Snickers in the second quarter.
Mars moved its ad from the third quarter after Fox came knocking with the chance to run a commercial before the halftime show as the Super Bowl commercial lineup shifted leading up to game day.

Creative: Motorola will hype its Xoom tablet by poking fun at the current king of tablet computing, Apple 's iPad. The Motorola ad will lampoon Apple 's famous "1984" Super Bowl commercial, which introduced the Macintosh computer to the masses. Will legions of modern geeks grok the stunt? Stay tuned.

Agency: Anomaly

NFL

Buy: One 60-second spot and one 30-second spot

Creative: In the minute-long commercial, the NFL makes use of about 20 different "families" from popular TV sitcoms over the decades. In the shorter spot, the NFL shows how its content can be consumed via many different tech devices.

Agency: WPP's Grey Group

Paramount Pictures

Buy: Five in-game spots for upcoming films "Captain America: The First Avenger," "Rango," "Super 8," "Thor" and "Transformers: The Dark Of The Moon." (Also one pre-game buy for DreamWorks Animation's "Kung Fu Panda 2," which the studio is distributing.)

Creative: Doritos is running its popular "Crash the Super Bowl" contest for the fifth year. This year, the contest has expanded to include sibling brand PepsiMax. Consumers will select two spots, while PepsiCo execs select the third.

Creative: Pepsiwill partner with Eminem to promote Lipton Brisk Iced Tea. Ad will feature stop-motion animation, which was used in a well-regarded Lipton campaign a few years back.

Agency: To be determined

Salesforce.com

Buy: One 30-second ad preceding and one 15-second ad following the halftime show featuring The Black-Eyed Peas.

Creative: Ads were developed with help from Will.i.am, part of half-time show act the Black Eyed Peas. The spots happen to feature animated characters called the "Baby Peas."

Agency: Dipdive, Will.i.am's media company

Skechers

Buy: One 30-second spot after the two-minute warning in fourth quarter

Creative: Skechers' Super Bowl ad featuring Kim Kardashian will promote the Shape-Ups toning line, marking its second consecutive Super Bowl berth.
"The idea is that Kim Kardashian is going to break someone's heart in front of 100 million people," the company told Ad Age. Last year the company used 15-second spots with testimonial from Joe Montana to boost the Shape-Ups line among men; it didn't have time to prepare a typically big-splash Super Bowl spot when a hole in the ad lineup became available just two weeks before last year's game.

Agency: In-house

Teleflora

Buy: One 30-second spot to air during the second quarter

Creative: Faith Hill will coach a sound tech through a Valentine's Day dilemma as Teleflora introduces a special Faith Hill "collection" aimed at adding some celebrity panache ot its floral offering. This marks Teleflora's third consecutive ad appearance during the Super Bowl.

Agency: Independent agency Fire Station

20th Century Fox

Buy: One 30-second spot in the fourth quarter for the animated film "Rio"